Advancing troops on way to key battle

March 26 2003

A picture of pride ... members of the celebrated Desert Rats Zulu Company, British Royal Fusiliers could not help posing proudly after they captured a portrait of a smiling Saddam Hussein when the local
headquarters of the Ba'ath Party fell to them after they overran the building during coalition operations in Basra, southern Iraq, on Monday. Photo: AFP/Mark Richards

Forward elements of the United States invasion force pushed to within 80 kilometres of Baghdad on Monday, heading for a potentially decisive battle with Iraq's Republican Guard despite hit-and-run attacks along the way.

US planes bombed heavily to weaken Iraqi defences, but a formation of advanced army helicopter gunships that joined the attack was forced to turn back after running into a hail of small-arms fire.

US artillery joined the warplanes in raining down explosives throughout the day to soften up positions around Karbala manned by President Saddam Hussein's best-trained and most loyal soldiers, Republican Guard divisions assigned to block approaches to the Iraqi capital.

Troops and armour from the army's 3rd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force moved towards the Guard units on both sides of the Euphrates River, getting in position for an assault that could open a path to Baghdad, the main target in the five-day-old, US-led invasion.

Iraqi soldiers and militiamen responded to the advancing US columns mostly with guerilla tactics, hiding in residential areas and firing anti-aircraft guns, rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles at the US military's most advanced battle helicopters. One of the army's AH-64D Apache Longbows went down - Iraqi authorities said it was shot down by a farmer - and a number of others abandoned their targets. ");document.write("

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The downed Apache's two-man crew was captured and displayed on Iraqi television in cream-colored jumpsuits, without apparent injuries. The Pentagon identified the two as Ronald Young, 26, and David Williams, 30, both with the rank of chief warrant officer 2 and based at Fort Hood, Texas.

Although ground forces continued their march northward beyond Nasiriyah, a city with two strategic bridges across the Euphrates and the site of fierce battles on Sunday, unconventional and unabated resistance hindered US and British military activity across a wide swath of southern Iraq.

Iraqi soldiers and militiamen, basing their Soviet-era tanks and artillery in residential neighbourhoods to discourage attack, held off British forces at the southern port of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city with more than 1 million inhabitants.

Diehard guerilla forces also persisted in sniping at British troops in Umm Qasr, the country's main port at the head of the Persian Gulf. Elsewhere in the south, which US forces have largely left behind in their advance, Iraqi troops armed with rocket-propelled grenades tried to ambush British outposts and US supply convoys by laying land mines on roads, setting booby traps and sniping from behind sand dunes, British officers said.

Saddam and his military strategists appeared emboldened by the capture of the Apache on Monday morning and two clashes on Sunday during which at least 16 Americans were killed and five were captured. Iraq's state-run television broadcast a speech by Saddam assuring Iraqis that "victory will be ours soon".

In another sign that may reflect confidence, US officers have received preliminary reports indicating Saddam has ordered some Republican Guard troops out of Baghdad and towards the main lines of defence to the south and east of the city. Their mission, the officers said, would be to reinforce the elite forces charged with fending off the invaders around Karbala, about 80 kilometres south-west of Baghdad.

With US troops closing in on those positions, the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, warned that allied forces would face "a crucial moment".